Posts Tagged ‘environmental awareness’

As the green way becomes the right way, more and more electric cars are beginning to be seen. Let’s admit this though, the very sight of one of these raises questions. Sure it looks more like a go-kart than an actual car, but there is little doubt that these vehicles are in fact better for the environment. Still that is not going to motivate every consumer to go out and get themselves behind the wheel of one of these electric or hybrid cars. There needs to be more of an incentive than the feel good aspect. That is exactly what Ontario, Canada is doing to assure more green vehicles hit their streets.

Starting in 2010 Ontario will offer a limited program exclusive to drivers that own green vehicles, such as plug-in hybrids and battery-powered electric vehicles. These vehicles will be given green colored license plates by the ministry of transportation next year. The owners of eligible vehicles will receive exclusive privileges that are intended to make driving a green vehicle more appealing.

Now that Thanksgiving is out of the way, Christmas is right around the corner. As everyone adapts to the holiday spirit the foundation behind any Christmas is a good Christmas tree. Now for those of you who are trying your best to go green you may wonder, is a real or fake tree better for the environment? With all of the various options available we can see why this would be a troubling question.

On one side you have the fresh real thing straight from mother earth, which is the choice of approximately 29 million households, according to the National Christmas Tree Associations. Yes, it is a real thing, I checked for myself. The majority of Christmas trees are grown on farms for this purpose, meaning deforestations is no longer an issue. However, the trees do have to be shipped from the farms to sites that are often long distances. On top of that, they also require pesticide and fueled vehicles to maintain and ultimately will end up in landfills.

Recently Dario and Kelly sat down with Eric Ritz, the founder of Global Inheritance to get a better understanding of what Eric is hoping to accomplish. Started in 2002, Global Inheritance is a 501C-3 non-profit working to empower individuals worldwide to think and act creatively in solving global imbalances. Global Inheritance raises the bar in environmentalism by partnering with big businesses and artists to push for progressive social change. With Eric’s experience working with the Truth Campaign, he gained insight on how to reach people for non profits.

“American Legacy was one of the first, if not the first, sort of [Non Governmental Organization] that went out there and really transformed their messages based on the audience and really did a good job of empowering versus guilting and really playing to people’s intelligence versus fire and brimstone preaching.”

With his fresh and open minded outlook on getting attention for his worthwhile causes,Ritz decided to start his own non-profit.

“I’d always really wanted to start my own non-profit, and I felt that due to technology and the direction that we were going and what you could create on the web, that it was the perfect time because I felt like I was experienced enough, I had enough energy, and with the Web I could be a lot bigger than we were without any sort of funding.”

By partnering with fashion brands ranging from Levi’s to Diesel and from American Apparel to Puma, Global Inheritance started to use clothing as a canvass for supporting causes and as a platform for the artist’s ideas.

They “felt it was a great way to communicate ideas and have people take a vested interest in what they believed in.”

This week launches NBC’s third annual “Green Week”, which will feature environmentally friendly programming starting Sunday November 15th. Green Week will reinforce NBC’s environmental initiative “Green is Universal” by tuning their programming to deliver environmental initiatives within their plots.

This year NBC’s Green Week will be centered on their “Green Counts Here” campaign. This cross-platform initiative gives NBC Universal audiences to make sure that Green Week counts. NBC will give their audiences the opportunity to a make pledges that would result in them making small green changes to their everyday lives. The amount of these pledges will show consumers the collective impact people can have towards the environment when they chose to do so.